NCCI promotes justice and equality initiatives, and envisions a society that is free from discrimination and intolerance. NCCI supports the current initiative in the form of an online petition from its constituent member, The Leprosy Mission, for Eliminating Discrimination against Persons Affected by Leprosy. The following information has been received from The Leprosy Mission, India.

As many of you know, recently the Law Commission of India submitted its report No: 256 to the Government of India on steps to be taken to end discrimination against people affected by leprosy, and empower them to be included in the development process. The Law Commission also submitted a draft Bill, titled ‘Eliminating Discrimination against Persons Affected by Leprosy’ (EDPAL) Bill, 2015, for repealing all the 14 laws discriminating people affected by leprosy.

The Parliament of India needs to act on the recommendations of the Law Commission and pass EDPAL Bill and also, bring new legislation for rehabilitation of people affected by leprosy. For this, the Government of India has to start the parliamentary process.

Sixteen national and international organisations working in the field of leprosy have come together as a collective, under the banner, ‘United4Change’, and petitioned the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, to get EDPAL Bill passed in the Parliament and bring new legislation for rehabilitation of people affected by leprosy.

The petition is hosted on Change.org, a website that provides a powerful online petition tool. Our goal is to get 50,000 signatures for this petition, and for this, we need your support – your signature has the power to make the Prime Minister take concrete action to bring about social justice and transform the lives of people affected by leprosy, as recommended by the Law Commission.

You can read more about this issue and sign the petition at the link given below:

Please share the above link on your Facebook timeline and request your friends to sign the petition. Please also request them to share the link on their Facebook timeline. Also, please circulate this link among your colleagues, friends and family members.

It is a great achievement for all of us who work with people affected by leprosy to come together as a collective and jointly start a petition which will bring historic change in the lives of people affected by leprosy.

We have hosted a micro site, ‘United4Change’ which is linked to the online petition, where we have given the names and logos of all organisations that have endorsed the petition. Please do visit the website at the following link and sign up for updates: www.united4change.in.

On behalf of the 12 million people suffering because of leprosy in India, we thank you, in anticipation, for standing with them when they needed your support most!